The pros and cons of working with enterprise clients, approaching and pitching top multinational brands, how to prepare your WordPress technical environment and standardize your processes.

1. Tips For
Successful WP
Enterprise
ProjectsMario Peshev / CEO at DevriX

2. ➔ CEO @ DevriX, the WordPress Retainer company
➔ Engineering background in the Enterprise
➔ Digital consultant for $5M - $100M SMEs
➔ LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora (ab)user
➔ Father, blogger, shisha fan
About Me
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

3. Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

4. Pros And Cons of
Enterprise Gigs

5. ➔ Brand awareness and reputability
➔ Solving problems at a larger scale
➔ Potentially long-term contracts
➔ Better pay thanks to the ROI opportunities
Pros
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

6. Cons
➔ NDAs and SLAs
➔ Long, tedious iterations, continuous meetings,
back-and-forth for standard operations
➔ Potentially a lot of paperwork for one-off builds
➔ Pay may be standard in case of bidding and
RFPs with competitors underpicing just
because of the brand’s visibility
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

7. Approaching an
Enterprise

8. How to Define Your Proposition?
Create the
perfect client
profile
Define a realistic
business model
for buy-in
Understand
client’s business
process

9. A Vendor or a Partner?
Subcontractor
➔ Opinions are considered
➔ Sticks to requirements
➔ Gets paid
➔ Always compared to alternative
providers
Partner
➔ Opinions matter
➔ Over-delivers
➔ Gets additional opportunities
➔ Provides tons of added value
Andrey Tepeshanov | 10 practical tips on how to engage with enterprise clients | WCS 2016

10. Paperwork is Crucial
➔ Long projects involve multiple stakeholders over time
➔ Create a clear brief, action items, policy for communication,
milestones, and deliverables
➔ Define the payment terms, along with different edge cases
(or “scope creep“)
➔ Clearly outline expectations, response times, and required
assets as early as possible
➔ Consult with a lawyer upfront (and an accountant if needed)
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

11. Handling Enterprise
Accounts

12. ➔ Define the comm channels (meetings, Skype, Zoom, calls)
➔ Prepare a reporting and delivery framework (heartbeats)
➔ Allocate enough time for internal syncs and handoffs
➔ Ensure you have access to the corresponding channels
➔ Meet other vendors and partners and understand your role
Communication
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

13. Meet the Users
➔ Your POC may lack all the context
➔ Study the usage habits of your actual customer base
➔ Approach that as a B2B2C relationship
➔ Try to speak with the future users of the solution early on
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

14. ➔ Carefully explore all requirements (conventions, regulations,
minimum versions, blacklisted solutions)
➔ Study the rest of the underlying ecosystem (tools and services)
➔ Make sure your approach follows the requirements closely
➔ Avoid releasing incompatible software which doesn’t fit
Standards/Compliance
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

15. Selecting The Right
Tools and Technical
Ecosystem

16. Tools and Services
➔ Support and PM System
➔ Email protocol and Slack integrations
➔ Zapier or IFTTT
➔ A hosting partner, IaaS or PaaS Solution
➔ Reliable payment solution
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

18. ➔ Payment terms are really complicated
➔ On top of the EU law, there's the local one
➔ You can leverage PayPal, 2Checkout, Payoneer etc.
➔ Accounting could be a major bottleneck depending on the
payment structure (NET-90, credit notes, etc.)
Payment Handling
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

19. Building a Robust
Enterprise Platform

20. The Core Pillars of
DevriX
The main Code Quality considerations for
WordPress engineers
➔ Stability
The ongoing stability across updates
and as the traffic grows
➔ Performance
Site load times and the ability to handle
high traffic
➔ Security
Secure and safe environment with data
protection in place

21. The main problems
1. A stable WordPress solution depends on а solid code
base, reliable server infrastructure, right choice of
components
2. Bundling plugins and themes together may cause
various conflicts
3. Adding multi-purpose plugins will add up to load, too
Stability
@no_fear_inc , Mario Peshev

22. Clean code and WP Standards
1. Following the WordPress Coding Standards is
mandatory
2. Plenty of off-the-shelf plugins don’t comply with the
conventions or care about the WP load cycle
3. Regular tracking of queries, DB and data calls is
needed
Stability
@no_fear_inc , Mario Peshev

23. Automated tools and testers
1. Use tools such as PHP CodeSniffer, PHP MD, ES Lint,
JSHint, jsLint
2. Unit and integrational testing tools and scripts
3. Continuous Integration and pre-deployment hooks
Stability
@no_fear_inc , Mario Peshev

24. 1. WordPress can handle hundreds of millions of views a
month
2. This does require a professional devops and web
development team following the standards and able
to scale in different scenarios
3. A small mistake can reduce the load time with
seconds
Performance
@no_fear_inc , Mario Peshev

25. Our performance process checklist while conducting code-reviews and speed improvements

26. WordPress Core is secure by design if the right integration
is performed
Security issues usually arise from:
● Outdated software
● 3rd party plugins or themes
● Insecure servers
● Human errors (weak passwords, open Wi-Fi)
Security
@no_fear_inc , Mario Peshev

27. Main WP problems
1. Generic solutions are not audited for security
2. There is no guaranteed repository for safe plugins
3. Security could be handled through isolated server
management, automated updates, regular backups
policy, code and database auditing and code reviews
before adding a feature
Security
@no_fear_inc , Mario Peshev

28. OWASP Top 10
The most authoritative list for top
vulnerabilities and security issues.
WordPress takes care of these in default
within the WordPress Core.
Following the established WP standards
prevents developers from causing
loopholes.
Story for illustration purposes only@no_fear_inc , Mario Peshev

29. Recap
➔ Decide if enterprises are your forte
➔ Define your enterprise audience and tackle as a corporation
➔ Sort out your legal and communication paperwork on time
➔ Acquire all assets as early as possible
➔ Bet on professional tooling that could scale
➔ Deliver outstanding quality that follows the 3S
Mario Peshev, @no_fear_inc

30. That’s all folks!
Questions?
Tweets as @no_fear_inc
Mario Peshev on LinkedIn/Quora
nofearinc on WordPress.org
Hacking around DevriX
Blogging at DevWP.eu /
mariopeshev.com